The incense had burned to ash. Madam Yan sat motionless before the family altar, her knees protesting against the hard prayer cushion. The ancestral tablets stared back at her—row upon row of polished ebony, each bearing the names of those who had come before. Those who had built.
Her hands, usually so steady, still trembled.
Lou Yan had knelt.
The thought circled like a vulture. Her grandson—the boy who had refused to cry when the monks disciplined him, the man who had rebuilt their fortune from ruin—had prostrated himself in this very hall. For a woman.
For love.
A draft whispered through the chamber, making the candle flames dance. In their flickering light, the shadows of the tablets seemed to shift, their carved names twisting into accusatory frowns.
Weakness, her father would have said.
Shame, her husband would have sighed.
But it was her mother's voice that came to her now, soft as the snow falling outside: "Even jade must bend, or it will shatter."
Madam Yan's breath hitched.
On the altar, the newest tablet stood slightly apart—Li Wei, her son, Lou's father. Gone too soon. She remembered how Lou had clung to her at the funeral, his small body wracked with sobs she could not soothe.
Had she become the kind of grandmother who made her grandson kneel in grief?
The thought was a knife to her ribs.
Outside, a branch snapped under the weight of snow. The sound seemed to startle the household—servants rushed to secure windows, the gatekeeper stamped his feet against the cold. Life moving on, as it always did.
Madam Yan reached for the incense box.
Her fingers brushed against something else—a small sketchbook left carelessly on the altar's edge. Syra's, no doubt. The girl must have dropped it in her haste to leave.
Against her better judgment, Madam Yan opened it.
And froze.
There, rendered in charcoal and gold leaf, was Lou Yan as she had never seen him—laughing, his head thrown back, his eyes crinkled at the corners. Alive in a way no portrait in the ancestral hall had ever captured.
Page after page revealed him: Lou asleep at his desk, Lou frowning over tea, Lou with paint smudged on his cheekbone.
And on the last page—
A rough sketch of herself, younger, smiling down at a child's hands guiding a calligraphy brush. The caption read: "The first time he felt proud of himself."
The incense ash scattered as Madam Yan slammed the book shut.
But the image lingered.
That night, when the household slept, Madam Yan did something she had not done in decades—she wept. Not the dignified tears of a matriarch, but the messy, gasping sobs of a woman who had forgotten what it was to bend.
Outside, the snow continued to fall, blanketing the compound in uncharacteristic silence.
------
Syra woke to sunlight streaming through the studio windows, her body still curled against Lou's side. He was already awake, his fingers tracing idle patterns along her bare arm, his phone discarded on the coffee table—clearly ignored in favor of this quiet moment.
She stretched, wincing as the movement pulled at her bruised knees.
"Don't," Lou murmured, his hand sliding to her waist to still her. "Rest."
Syra smiled, pressing a kiss to his jaw. "I'm fine. Just sore."
Her gaze drifted to the mess of their dinner—the elegant takeout containers now empty, the half-finished cup of tea Lou had insisted she drink for the herbs. Then her eyes landed on her bag, upturned near the door, its contents spilled across the floor.
Her breath caught.
"My sketchbook—"
She scrambled upright, ignoring Lou's protest as she crossed the room. Frantically, she sifted through the scattered pens, charcoals, and loose papers. But the leather-bound book—the one she always carried, the one filled with countless sketches of *him*—was gone.
Lou was at her side in an instant. "What's wrong?"
"I must have left it at your grandmother's house," she whispered, her stomach dropping.
The realization hit them both at once. That sketchbook contained everything—private moments, unguarded expressions, Lou as only she had ever seen him. And now it was in Madam Yan's hands.
Syra's knees threatened to buckle again.
Lou steadied her, his voice low. "It doesn't matter."
"Of course it matters!" She pulled away, her hands trembling. "Those were private, Lou. There were—" Her voice broke. "There were drawings of you in there. Of us."
And worse—a half-finished sketch of Madam Yan herself, drawn from Lou's childhood stories. A moment Syra had painstakingly recreated based on his descriptions: a younger Madam Yan teaching him calligraphy, her stern facade softened by pride.
What would his grandmother think, seeing herself through Syra's eyes? Through Lou's memories?
Lou cupped her face, forcing her to meet his gaze. "Listen to me. However she reacts, we'll face it together."
Syra wanted to believe him. But the pit in her stomach grew heavier. That sketchbook was more than just paper and charcoal—it was her heart laid bare. And now it belonged to the woman who despised her.
---
The Knock came at noon—three sharp raps that echoed through the studio. Steady and deliberate just like Lou Yan's.
Syra froze, her paintbrush hovering over the canvas. Lou, who had been working at her desk, went utterly still.
The knock came again. Insistent.
Lou moved first, his body positioning itself subtly between Syra and the door as he opened it.
Madam Yan stood on the threshold.
Dressed in uncharacteristically simple qipao of dove-gray silk, her hair pulled back in a severe bun, she looked older than Syra remembered. The shadows under her eyes betrayed a sleepless night.
In her hands—Syra's sketchbook.
For a heartbeat, no one spoke.
Then Madam Yan stepped forward, extending the book toward Syra. "You left this."
Her voice was quieter than usual, lacking its usual razor edge.
Syra reached for it slowly, half-expecting the woman to snatch it back. But Madam Yan merely released it into her grasp, her fingers brushing Syra's for the briefest moment.
"Page forty-seven," Madam Yan said abruptly. "The hands are wrong."
Syra blinked. "What?"
"My left hand." The old woman's tone was clipped, but not unkind. "I always held the brush higher when teaching him. You'll need to correct it."
And with that, she turned on her heel and walked away, leaving Syra clutching the sketchbook to her chest, her heart pounding.
Lou exhaled sharply, his shoulders relaxing.
Syra flipped to page forty-seven—the sketch of Madam Yan and young Lou. In the margin, written in delicate calligraphy she didn't recognize, was a single character:
改
Correct.
Not an insult.
An invitation.